Marvel Legends SDCC’16 exclusive The Raft

The Raft features some of Marvel’s baddest bad guys

It’s getting tricky to keep up with all of the Hasbro Marvel Legends. Last year saw a slew of excellent releases, but 2016 seems poised to somehow top it. This year’s Marvel Legends SDCC exclusive The Raft certainly helps that challenge.

The Raft features some villains I didn’t think we’d ever see in this line. The Raft made its Marvel Cinematic Universe debut this year in Captain America: Civil War. Basically it’s an undersea prison to house the Marvel universe’s worst villains. In the Civil War comic it also played a major role so this was a fitting time for this theme.

The Raft features some interesting choices though since there’s little connection with these guys. The set includes Hulk’s arch-enemy Abomination, Avengers/Thor enemy The Enchantress, Iron Man foe Dreadknight, Jessica Jones arch-enemy Kilgrave The Purple Man, Spider-Man and one of his arch-enemies Sandman.

Dreadknight, Enchantress and Purple Man are the big wants for me in this set. I really got hooked on The Avengers when I read their early adventures following my first exposure to them in Secret Wars. Enchantress was one of the Masters of Evil. We already have Baron Zemo from the Toy Biz line. Hopefully Enchantress’ arrival means we’ll see a Skurge The Executioner to complete that incarnation of the team.

Purple Man is a nice exclusive choice. We still don’t have a Jessica Jones figure … yet. Maybe she’s pending with the SDCC reveals from Hasbro.

Dreadknight is another perfect exclusive choice. Now we need to figure out an ideal horse for him to terrorize the skies. Gotta think we can finally get a better Black Knight figure off of this body since there’s a lot of reuse possibilities. I’m torn if I want the evil Black Knight that was part of the Masters of Evil with Radioactive Man, Klaw and Whirlwind or the Avenger member Dane Whitman.

I’m surprised Spider-Man is in The Raft set though since it’s not like he’s a figure that’s needed to sell an exclusive. Sand version Sandman is a cool variant. I’m sure we’ll see a regularly painted version later on in a Spider-Man standalone wave.

Abomination is another curious choice since he’s the Build-A-Figure in the latest Captain America wave. This one has some slight paint differences. For folks who get this set there’s not a ton of incentive to build Abomination.

The trick as usual in capturing The Raft will be catching Hasbro Toy Shop at the right time to get the set. HTS never gives much of a head’s up after SDCC so it’s a major guessing game. If I’m fortunate enough to get a set look for a review of The Raft very soon.